Oman moves closer to a post-oil economy

Education is a critical part of this equation, as many citizens lack the type of technical knowledge needed to kick-start certain industries, noted Marcus Chenevix, a MENA analyst with the London-based economics consultancy TS Lombard. "Oman has a great deal of potential to diversify, probably in many ways more than its neighbours, especially in terms of tourism and in terms of the natural resources that Oman has available - things like access to an enormous fishery," he told Al Jazeera. However, the focus on areas such as manufacturing may be problematic, as the country "has no real institutional memory of having that kind of industry and it's very hard to develop that from scratch", Chenevix said.